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Clarifying I find the furry art weird, and not pornographic. (Weird is fine btw, normal is the worse insult imho) I think the biggest issue is the damage that

Clarifying I find the furry art weird, and not pornographic. (Weird is fine btw, normal is the worse insult imho) I think the biggest issue is the damage that the word "Censorship" has taken in the last few years. If I ran a payment processor, the first thing I would do is try to be as neutral as my moral compass allows. The second thing I would do is intentionally stop processing payments on behalf of anyone I was uncomfortable with on a personal level. I dont support a thing, so I wont give material support to a thing. Thats not censorship. Its not censorship when amazon removes a book, or a publisher takes something out of print. If everything is censorship, including freedom of association, nothing is censorship. I think the best thing that can be done about this problem is to promote and create alternate payment processors. The second best thing is to help these sites accept crypto payments (yes I know the article hung a lantern on that, but still)

bluefirebrand 1y ago
> The second thing I would do is intentionally stop processing payments on behalf of anyone I was uncomfortable with on a personal level Corporations do not have a "personal level"
- protocolture 1y ago
  They do lol. They are run by humans.
JoshTriplett 1y ago
Broadly speaking I'd usually agree, except that Visa/Mastercard are a two-company oligopoly at this point, with effectively no meaningful competition. Yes, other payment mechanisms exist, but consider how much it limits the viability of an online business to not accept credit cards.
- TZubiri 1y ago
  There's a gajillion currencies, banking systems, wallets, crypto, amex. Widen your category definition and you'll see it.
  - its-summertime 1y ago
    And how many are viable alternatives?
  - JoshTriplett 1y ago
    I say again: > consider how much it limits the viability of an online business to not accept credit cards For the vast majority of online businesses, accepting exclusively crypto, or exclusively bank payments, would result in much less business. Orders of magnitude less business. They are not viable alternatives for the vast majority of purposes.
    - cesarb 1y ago
      > For the vast majority of online businesses, accepting exclusively crypto, or exclusively bank payments, would result in much less business. Orders of magnitude less business. I would add a qualifier to your statement: for the vast majority of global online businesses. An online business serving a single country could make use of country-specific payment systems, which are often very popular. If a Brazil-only online business accepted only payments through PIX and boleto bancário, that could result in less business, but not orders of magnitude less business.
      - svachalek 1y ago
        I don't think the debate people are having is about Brazil.
      - JoshTriplett 1y ago
        Sure; that was exactly the kind of case that previously led me to edit my comment to add the "for the vast majority" qualifier. Similarly, bank payments are popular in European countries because there are convenient wrappers around them, if you're only selling to certain countries. Along the same lines, I qualified it as "online businesses" because there are still some brick-and-mortar businesses that require cash. It's still limiting your business, but less so, especially if you're in a context where people expect many businesses to be that way (e.g. a farmer's market). But for online businesses that aren't country-specific, which I'd argue is the vast majority of online businesses? You accept credit cards or you get a lot less business. (And the next-most-popular option, PayPal, does even more of this kind of thing than Visa and MasterCard do, and much more capriciously.)
fenomas 1y ago
> Its not censorship when amazon removes a book Analogies like this are misleading, IMO. Like if a theater chooses not to show a certain movie that's obviously not censorship, but if the water company effectively prevents the movie from showing by threatening to cut off the theater's water, colloquially the term would certainly apply. And what happened here seems a lot closer to the latter than the former. > best thing .. to promote and create alternate payment processors That would only make sense in your analogy, where the shutoff stemmed from the payment processor owner's moral compass. What actually happened here is that an advocacy group hounded the biggest processors into it, so as other processors get big enough, by symmetry the same thing will repeat. It seems to me that what's needed here is other advocacy groups willing to hound the processors in the other direction.
- pas 1y ago
  how would a group hound the processors in the other direction? also, how are these "puritan" groups doing the hounding? I mean, are they threatening some kind of legal action? based on old (or not so old) obscenity laws? could the against hounding group do the same? on what legal basis? or is it enough to do the usual "securities fraud" angle? maybe what matters is how much money the hounding group credibly has to spend on lawyers?
  - armada651 1y ago
    > also, how are these "puritan" groups doing the hounding? I mean, are they threatening some kind of legal action? based on old (or not so old) obscenity laws? They're not suing them in civil court, they're threatening to use the court of public perception against them. If they allow these payments the activism groups will set up a campaign titled something like "Visa facilitates incest and child abuse!" and "Mastercard allows you to see women getting beaten". This is a very effective strategy because there's nothing more important to these companies than a squeaky clean brand image. And what they perceive as damaging to their brand image is entirely subjective and just depends on whether an activist group can spin it in a way that looks bad for them.
    - 1y ago
nine_k 1y ago
This is fair, as long as you're a small operation, and those you didn't like can go shop elsewhere. Visa + MasterCard are a duopoly controlling the overwhelming majority of the market, and if they ban a seller, there's little else the seller can switch to. I think a processor like Visa could benefit a lot from the status similar to the "common carrier". Like a telephone network must offer service to anyone, but cannot be held liable for the content of the communication (even if criminals are using it), Visa could accept the requirement to pass payments to any counterparty in exchange for dropping the KYC requirements. Let banks and merchants care about that. I don't think that the US or EU government would agree to grant such a status though.
cmitsakis 1y ago
While freedom of association is fine on a personal level and maybe for small businesses, big corporation that are monopolies or oligopolies shouldn't have this freedom. They should be regulated and forced to serve everyone otherwise they have the power to exclude some people completely from such services with no alternative. Due to their power, their decisions affect people as if they are government decisions, yet we don't have a say on it like we do with the government so it's even worse than government censorship yet some people justify it because they are "private companies" as if that means something.
- eastbound 1y ago
  What philosophical argument would you make for or against excommunication in the Middle Age?
  - goda90 1y ago
    There's a good reason religious tolerance was an outcome of the Enlightenment.
  - pixl97 1y ago
    That religion and government have no place with each other.
- phyzix5761 1y ago
  Why do we have this idea that big corporations are these giant scary entities disconnected from real people? Majority shareholders for Visa are the retirement accounts of regular people and retail investors. We want the public to dictate the actions of what other regular people do with their money without taking on any financial risk for those policies.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
    > Why do we have this idea that big corporations are these giant scary entities disconnected from real people? Because they are. The corporate structure as well as the internal and external systems in our political/legal/economic systems are designed specifically to make corporations work as economic engines where risk, responsibility, and liability are distributed and diluted to the point it they pretty much evaporate. This means that corporations can do things like commit full on crimes, without any real person going to jail. Why? Because they are disconnected from real people by design.
hnuser123456 1y ago
It's censorship because literally a censor activist group engaged in a campaign to push these processors to do this.
windward 1y ago
This is a mis-definition of censorship, similar to what happens to 'propaganda', where you're only considering the censorship that you don't like to be censorship.
_Algernon_ 1y ago
If your water company stops delivering water to you because you post furry porn it becomes a problem. The problem is when a company becomes so big that it is a natural monopoly (or effectively part of a cartel), while basically being necessary infrastructure to operate in a modern society. These payment networks fit that description, and should either be broken apart so that you get the necessary competition, or be regulated so that they have to provide service for legal goods and services in a given jurisdiction.

bluefirebrand 1y ago

> The second thing I would do is intentionally stop processing payments on behalf of anyone I was uncomfortable with on a personal level Corporations do not have a "personal level"

protocolture 1y ago
They do lol. They are run by humans.

JoshTriplett 1y ago

Broadly speaking I'd usually agree, except that Visa/Mastercard are a two-company oligopoly at this point, with effectively no meaningful competition. Yes, other payment mechanisms exist, but consider how much it limits the viability of an online business to not accept credit cards.

TZubiri 1y ago
There's a gajillion currencies, banking systems, wallets, crypto, amex. Widen your category definition and you'll see it.
- its-summertime 1y ago
  And how many are viable alternatives?
- JoshTriplett 1y ago
  I say again: > consider how much it limits the viability of an online business to not accept credit cards For the vast majority of online businesses, accepting exclusively crypto, or exclusively bank payments, would result in much less business. Orders of magnitude less business. They are not viable alternatives for the vast majority of purposes.
  - cesarb 1y ago
    > For the vast majority of online businesses, accepting exclusively crypto, or exclusively bank payments, would result in much less business. Orders of magnitude less business. I would add a qualifier to your statement: for the vast majority of global online businesses. An online business serving a single country could make use of country-specific payment systems, which are often very popular. If a Brazil-only online business accepted only payments through PIX and boleto bancário, that could result in less business, but not orders of magnitude less business.
    - svachalek 1y ago
      I don't think the debate people are having is about Brazil.
    - JoshTriplett 1y ago
      Sure; that was exactly the kind of case that previously led me to edit my comment to add the "for the vast majority" qualifier. Similarly, bank payments are popular in European countries because there are convenient wrappers around them, if you're only selling to certain countries. Along the same lines, I qualified it as "online businesses" because there are still some brick-and-mortar businesses that require cash. It's still limiting your business, but less so, especially if you're in a context where people expect many businesses to be that way (e.g. a farmer's market). But for online businesses that aren't country-specific, which I'd argue is the vast majority of online businesses? You accept credit cards or you get a lot less business. (And the next-most-popular option, PayPal, does even more of this kind of thing than Visa and MasterCard do, and much more capriciously.)

fenomas 1y ago

> Its not censorship when amazon removes a book Analogies like this are misleading, IMO. Like if a theater chooses not to show a certain movie that's obviously not censorship, but if the water company effectively prevents the movie from showing by threatening to cut off the theater's water, colloquially the term would certainly apply. And what happened here seems a lot closer to the latter than the former. > best thing .. to promote and create alternate payment processors That would only make sense in your analogy, where the shutoff stemmed from the payment processor owner's moral compass. What actually happened here is that an advocacy group hounded the biggest processors into it, so as other processors get big enough, by symmetry the same thing will repeat. It seems to me that what's needed here is other advocacy groups willing to hound the processors in the other direction.

pas 1y ago
how would a group hound the processors in the other direction? also, how are these "puritan" groups doing the hounding? I mean, are they threatening some kind of legal action? based on old (or not so old) obscenity laws? could the against hounding group do the same? on what legal basis? or is it enough to do the usual "securities fraud" angle? maybe what matters is how much money the hounding group credibly has to spend on lawyers?
- armada651 1y ago
  > also, how are these "puritan" groups doing the hounding? I mean, are they threatening some kind of legal action? based on old (or not so old) obscenity laws? They're not suing them in civil court, they're threatening to use the court of public perception against them. If they allow these payments the activism groups will set up a campaign titled something like "Visa facilitates incest and child abuse!" and "Mastercard allows you to see women getting beaten". This is a very effective strategy because there's nothing more important to these companies than a squeaky clean brand image. And what they perceive as damaging to their brand image is entirely subjective and just depends on whether an activist group can spin it in a way that looks bad for them.
  - 1y ago

nine_k 1y ago

This is fair, as long as you're a small operation, and those you didn't like can go shop elsewhere. Visa + MasterCard are a duopoly controlling the overwhelming majority of the market, and if they ban a seller, there's little else the seller can switch to. I think a processor like Visa could benefit a lot from the status similar to the "common carrier". Like a telephone network must offer service to anyone, but cannot be held liable for the content of the communication (even if criminals are using it), Visa could accept the requirement to pass payments to any counterparty in exchange for dropping the KYC requirements. Let banks and merchants care about that. I don't think that the US or EU government would agree to grant such a status though.

cmitsakis 1y ago

While freedom of association is fine on a personal level and maybe for small businesses, big corporation that are monopolies or oligopolies shouldn't have this freedom. They should be regulated and forced to serve everyone otherwise they have the power to exclude some people completely from such services with no alternative. Due to their power, their decisions affect people as if they are government decisions, yet we don't have a say on it like we do with the government so it's even worse than government censorship yet some people justify it because they are "private companies" as if that means something.

eastbound 1y ago
What philosophical argument would you make for or against excommunication in the Middle Age?
- goda90 1y ago
  There's a good reason religious tolerance was an outcome of the Enlightenment.
- pixl97 1y ago
  That religion and government have no place with each other.
phyzix5761 1y ago
Why do we have this idea that big corporations are these giant scary entities disconnected from real people? Majority shareholders for Visa are the retirement accounts of regular people and retail investors. We want the public to dictate the actions of what other regular people do with their money without taking on any financial risk for those policies.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
  > Why do we have this idea that big corporations are these giant scary entities disconnected from real people? Because they are. The corporate structure as well as the internal and external systems in our political/legal/economic systems are designed specifically to make corporations work as economic engines where risk, responsibility, and liability are distributed and diluted to the point it they pretty much evaporate. This means that corporations can do things like commit full on crimes, without any real person going to jail. Why? Because they are disconnected from real people by design.

hnuser123456 1y ago

It's censorship because literally a censor activist group engaged in a campaign to push these processors to do this.

windward 1y ago

This is a mis-definition of censorship, similar to what happens to 'propaganda', where you're only considering the censorship that you don't like to be censorship.

_Algernon_ 1y ago

If your water company stops delivering water to you because you post furry porn it becomes a problem. The problem is when a company becomes so big that it is a natural monopoly (or effectively part of a cartel), while basically being necessary infrastructure to operate in a modern society. These payment networks fit that description, and should either be broken apart so that you get the necessary competition, or be regulated so that they have to provide service for legal goods and services in a given jurisdiction.